


Little Bird

by Bracefacefreak



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blood, Domestic Violence, F/M, I mean what do you expect from the Moriarty's, I'm sure I've missed something else so please tell me if you find something you want tagged, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lots of Murder, Murder, Protective Siblings, Sibling Love, Violence, close sibling relationship, evil children, psychopaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:47:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bracefacefreak/pseuds/Bracefacefreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-She watches the birds in the sky above and feels white-hot anger flush through her veins. After all, if she can’t fly away from here why should they.-</p><p>The story of the Moriarty siblings, how they grew up in blood and violence, and flew from the grips of fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Bird

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very different style from what I normally write, so I'm curious (and terrified) about how this will be received. 
> 
> I loved writing this and I hope you enjoy reading it.

There is a monster in the house.

 

Not the sort that the other children whisper about that hide in the wardrobe with needle sharp teeth and razor scales.  She’s not stupid. She knows the lies that parents tell their children to get them to into bed at night; empty threats about grasping hands and being smuggled away under the cover of darkness.

 

Mama doesn’t talk about their monster. There are no threats. Not ever.

 

But she can hear It.

 

It prowls about downstairs late at night, crashing into the furniture and howling at the moon. 

 

By the morning It is gone.

 

They eat their toast in fragile silence, Mama smiling at them with bloodied lips and a swollen eye.

 

\----

 

None of the adults listen when she tells them.

 

\----

 

Some nights are worse than others.

When the off-key notes hummed by her brother are not enough to drown It out she squeezes her eyes shut, focuses on the shrieks of the gulls outside and pretends she can fly.

 

Beside her, her brother curls in close, his nose pressed into her hair.

 

“Shhh little bird, shhhh. You're not big enough to fly away yet.”

 

Reality rushes back. A whiteblind heat sears through her, flaring in her temples and coiling itself around her gut.

 

She scratches at his face, wishing she could dig her fingers into the space behind his eyes and rip out his cruel tongue.

 

He laughs.

 

She falls asleep with his blood beneath her nails and his lips pressed against her forehead. He’s still laughing.

 

\----

 

The mornings typically find her down at the old storage shed where she collects the damp shoe box from its hiding place.

 

She’s been collecting ever since her brother had persuaded little Tony McGinty to use his new slingshot on the robin outside school last Christmas.

 

She has four now. The robin’s still her favourite, even if the stitching is a bit wonky and some of its feathers had been singed off in their make-shift embalming process.

 

Her fingers stroke the tattered edge of its left wing.

 

She laughs giddily.

 

If she can’t fly away from here why should they.

 

\----

 

Their mother dies when she is seven. She listens to her last screams from under the blankets. The quiet that follows pounds against her skull, she wraps the sheets around her to smoother it. She doesn’t cry.

 

The bed dips.

 

Maybe the monster has finally come for her.

 

A hand finds its way through the cocoon of blankets, twists itself into her hair and scratches its nails against her scalp. She lets out a shaky breath and unfolds herself as he slips in beside her. His face is pale. There are spatters of red in his hair.

 

“Don’t be scared little bird,” he whispers softly as he wraps himself around her, “I’m going to look after you.  I promise.”

 

 

\----

 

People always say that the monsters get less scary as you grow up. It’s not true.

 

\----

 

She turns up to school one morning, purple blossoming along her jawbone and wrist swollen-red. No-one says a word.

 

\----

 

Her brother misses a week of school.  Flu, the teachers tell one another. It’s not true; the monster nearly cracked his skull in half. No-one mentions the scar just visible at the edge of his hairline when he returns.

 

\----

 

Blood.

 

It’s everywhere. Over her hands, in her hair, dripping from the hem of her school dress.

 

She drops the hammer.

 

Her brother rushes forward and grasps her hand.

 

They look at the monster then at each other and back at the monster.

 

A sob breaks free from between her clenched teeth, except it’s a laugh and then neither of them can stop.

 

\----

 

The police find them the next morning, wide eyed and shaking. Their father lies on the kitchen floor, his head smashed in.

 

They wrap the two silent children up in blankets and with gentle words coax them into the back of their car. The officer in the front seat watches, mumbling to himself ‘poor little mites’. They don’t let go of each other.

 

\----

 

Gang killing, the papers report it as.

 

\----

 

“You did well little bird,” he repeats again and again when he sneaks into her room after dark and kisses her forehead.

 

\----

 

Their new home smells of vanilla and wood-smoke. She has her own room, her own bed.

 

Their new mother wears funny hats and takes them with her to church on Sunday mornings, dressed up with their hair neatly combed and their shoes spit-polished.

 

Their new father has a gentle voice and a funny moustache; it tickles when he kisses her on the cheek before she goes to bed.

 

She misses her shoe box.

 

\----

 

At school they call her names.

 

Mouse. Ugly duckling.                            

 

Her brother goes pale faced when she tells him and he grips her fingers tight enough it hurts. She folds herself against his chest and listens to his heart beating strong and steady and just for her.

 

“What shall I do?”  he asks, clutching her to him.

 

She doesn’t make a sound, just nuzzles more into his chest. She knows he’ll understand. He always does.

 

He presses his face against her neck and she can feel the cruel upturn of his lips.

 

“Whatever you want little bird, whatever you want.”

 

\----

 

Carl is a friend of their neighbour.  He never sees his twelfth birthday.

 

\----

 

One day she finds a baby swift at the bottom of a tree. It lies twitching on the ground, tiny wings beating helplessly at the air. It’s crying for its mother. She picks it up and cradles the little thing in the palm of her hand. It’s little heart thrums beneath her fingers. She runs a finger along the fine feathers on its neck, bones so tiny and delicate it feels that even the slightest pressure could break them.

 

The next day she finds an old shoe box hidden under her parent’s bed.

 

\----

 

By the time her brother gets his offer from Cambridge, she has seven in her collection.

 

\----

 

She sits with her birds on the day he leaves, hidden in the shadows at the back of the garden.

 

“Little bird!” he calls from the back door.

 

She ignores him, refusing to even look up.

 

“Little bird.”

 

Closer, softer, more dangerous.

 

She still doesn’t look up.

 

A hand closes around her throat, forcing her onto her feet. She tenses as she meets his eyes, coal-dark and empty.

 

Her heart runs wild in her chest; her ribs feel like they are about to crack open but she won’t cry or sob. She is strong. She is not a little bird. She is a harpy.

 

He breaks first. Howling as he drops to his knees. He presses his face into her stomach, it feels wet.

 

“Little bird,” he mumbles against the fabric of her dress, “My little bird.”

 

She wraps her arms tight around his head, holds him against her. Her eyes string but her cheeks remain dry.

 

She wishes he wasn’t going. She wishes she could consume him here, carry him inside her forever.

They were always one soul; why did they have to be so cruelly torn into two bodies?

 

“I’ll be here,” she whispers back. She leans over, presses her lips to the crown of his head and imagines she can still taste the flecks of blood there. “I’ll wait here.”

 

An engine turns over. A voice calls for him and achingly-slowly he peels himself away. There is so much pain in his eyes.

 

He kisses her.

 

She nods.

 

He leaves.

 

She looks down at the shoe box; little faces stare back at her, blank and lifeless. She jams the lid on, kicks it away and screams and screams and screams.

 

\----

 

Her parents are worried about her. She’s heard them whispering her name behind closed doors; whenever she speaks  they give each other that sideways look even as they nod and smile and nod some more.

 

She finds her shoe box open and empty at the back of the shed, the lingering scent of formaldehyde the only remainder of her precious collection.

 

She draws red lines up the inside of her thighs that night. It does nothing to numb the ripping pain in her chest and she throws the razor away.

 

A month later she finds the letter and she knows it’s the end.

\----

 

When she arrives in Cambridge she still smells of smoke.

 

He opens his mouth to speak but she hushes him with soot-blackened fingers. He takes her hand, draws her inside.

 

The house is cold. She’s glad; she’s had enough of fire.

 

“I heard..” he doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to.

 

She nods.

 

“They were going to…”

 

“I know.”

 

“I had no choice.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Are you angry?”

 

“No little bird,” he says, pulling her close and muttering into her hairline, “Never.”

 

\----

 

She’s filling out an application form for university when she decides to do it.

 

She crafts a new signature, the loops and swirls running effortlessly onto the yellow paper. She finishes with a final flourish, sighs.

 

Her brother comes to stand behind her, his ink-smudged fingers fit over the curve of her shoulder and he leans over to read her script.

 

“Do you like it?” she asks. He doesn’t respond straight away, his lips form the word soundlessly as he rolls the syllables over his tongue and teeth. Eventually he squeezes down.

 

“Molly?” he hums, “It’s all right I guess.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did you guess it? I imagine you did, it's not that surprising really. So, I adore the idea that Molly was really working for Jim and even more I adore the idea that she is Jim's much-loved, little sister. 
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed it! Please comment and tell me what you liked/didn't like and please let me know if I've forgotten to tag anything that you'd like tagged. Thank you!


End file.
